


The Ocean Breathes Salty

by revengeandotherdrugs



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Because I suck, Enjolras washes up on a beach, Grantaire is afraid of water, M/M, Multi, Probably ooc, Selkies, The rating will go up eventually, badly translated brenton, channel islands, inaccurate portrayals of island life, maybe and maybe not, ondie au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:04:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4026172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revengeandotherdrugs/pseuds/revengeandotherdrugs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire is disillusioned by life in general, Jehan believes in fairytales and Enjolras falls somewhere in between.<br/>or the Ondine au that no one wanted but you're getting anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea floating around in my head for almost a year now so this is going to be a mammoth work... oh no.  
> And yes, the title is from the Modest Mouse song. Fight me Helen.

He dreamed of seals. Not the soft round seals that sunned themselves on rocks out on the beach when the weather was fair, nothing like those. These had been sleek white-furred killing machines, the ocean’s wolves, all razor teeth and sharp movements. There had been four, thrashing in the water, muzzles stained with blood and teeth hung ragged with strips of flesh like flags; wolves of the sea, beautiful in their cruelty. They had eaten Grantaire’s heart and swum away into the darkness.   

 Grantaire awoke sometime before dawn, cold even beneath his mound of blankets. His heart ached and he imagined he could feel the bite of teeth against his skin and taste the tang of salt water in his mouth. He absently ran his hands over his chest, almost afraid that his fingers would run against the ragged edge of a wound. He chuckled a little at himself when he found nothing, rolling onto his back to watch the room slowly take on the light of morning; black bleeding into pink bleeding into grey across the cracked plaster of the ceiling.

 The warped wood of the floor was cold under his bare feet as he padded to the tiny bathroom, flipping on the kettle on his way. He didn’t bother with a shower, splashing his face with the rusty water from the sink and trying his hair back into a bun. He briefly considered shaving but decided that it was far too early to make decisions about his facial hair and left his weeks worth of stubble where it was.

 The kettle beeped in the other room, starkly digital in the soft early-morning quiet of the house.

 The house itself was only one room and a small closet of a toilet. It was large enough for a man living on his own, cozy enough with a fire going. Bookshelves covered almost every available wall-space filled with books of all sorts and boxes of seldom used art supplies.  It featured a bed, a table, three chairs and a small, cramped loveseat in front of the cold hearth. He tried keeping herbs on the windowsill over the kitchen sink, gangly shoots of rosemary in a purple pot, a long-dead chervil and a patchy basil that had never been truly healthy.  Grantaire’s easel was set up at an angle to the bed, where the light from the west was nicest in the afternoon.  It was lonely but it was enough.

Grantaire made tea and drank it sitting at the small, splintery table in the center of the room, calloused hands trying to leech some heat from the thick blue stoneware. He felt as if the phantom sea had lodged itself in his bones making every limb heavy, salt encrusted and cold. It was the ghost of a feeling, this constant weight something familiar enough so as to be ignored.

He took a long drink out of the bottle of whiskey to try and chase it away and then two more after the first one only made it worse.

He finished the tea and deposited his mug in the sink, reaching for the jeans and sweater that he had left hanging over the back of a chair from the night before. He pulled on his boots and filled his large, tin flask with the last of the whiskey, tucking it safely into the pocket of his trousers alongside his gloves.

He didn’t bother locking his door; no one ever went up that far anyway.

Temperate winter weather was giving way to a soft spring of rain and silver fog that rolled in off the sea at night and retreated with the dawn. It was a good twelve minutes walking to the harbor, up across the fields and down along the dunes to the harbor walk and town proper, cutting across open fields for most of the way. Occasionally there would be a cow-path or a dirt track leading further inland toward the village proper but Grantaire mostly avoided these, preferring the wide open spaces of the cow pastures and the dunes.

Nothing was blooming yet, nor would for a while, and the black tangles of the sea rose looked like barbed wire along the path. Everything was bare, the fields, riots of wildflowers and color in the summer, had become long stretches of grey green grass interspersed only with a rare copse of yew and scots pine that clung gamely to its patch of salty soil, gnarled roots digging deep and sucking the ground dry.

The sun was rising to his right, making feeble rainbows in the dew and the moisture rising in mist from the ground. Cows, left in their fields overnight to take advantage of the encroaching spring, watched him with disinterest, chewing their cud.  Seagulls wheeled in the sky, screaming like banshees, as innocuous as barking dogs.

Coming up over a slight rise Grantaire could see down the cliffs to the stone walls of the harbor where small sailboats and container ships lived side by side in some uneasy coexistence, the inn on its little outcropping above the harbor, the harbor master’s office down off the harbor walk near the quay and beyond that, the open sea, cloudy green like glass.

Bahorel was already in the harbor-master’s office, thermos of tea in hand, going over the list of ships due into port that day.

Bahorel was a giant; the lone true Norman-viking on an island of Celts. He possessed a certain rough demeanor that many misconstrued as unfriendliness but was really just a side-effect of the deep quality of his voice and the constantly pissed off expression of his face. For his size he was unnaturally graceful, he didn’t stomp like one might have expected but rather glided, his large feet making no sound. He owned a small fishing boat and was the latest in a long line of fisherpeople based off the island. He had traveled extensively, having lived as a shopkeeper in Brittany for a time before returning to the island and his boat and his fish. They had grown up together, him and Grantaire, the only children in their grade at school and the only ones in their school that hadn’t run away to the mainland at the first chance. They had become friends by necessity if nothing else.

“R”  he greeted with a smile. Handing over the clipboard.

They had two boats due to come in that day, morning and evening mail with three small fishing boats due out to Port de Rouen, Portsmouth and Plymouth.

“slow day” Grantaire commented, stealing Bahorel’s thermos from where he had left it and sliding into one of the rough-hewn stools around the chart table.

“not too bad” he replied, then, noticing his tea in Grantaire’s hand “don’t backwash”

Grantaire raised the thermos in a sarcastic toast “yec’hed mat”

Bahorel offered him two fingers in response.

The harbor-master, Valjean, came in from the back, shaking droplets of fog off of his sweater. Valjean wasn’t a native of the island, in fact no one really knew where he had come from; he had arrived on a small sailboat with his daughter some 15 years before and never left.

As a rule islanders didn’t take kindly to strangers and were unwelcoming at best and outright hostile at worst. Valjean was the only real exception; there was something about him, some gentle piece of his soul that made him instantly likable. He was a humble man who had been awarded the station of Harbour master, a role akin to that of mayor, after his heroic rescue of Fauchelevent from under his tractor some years before.  He served his post with a level head, an organized mind and a kind eye for those in his employ.  He was a good man through and through and carried himself with the sort of quiet royalty that is often reserved for saints; his grey eyes kind beneath the wrinkles of his care-weathered face.

"What's on the line for today boys?" He asked, hanging his beaten sou'wester on the hook by the door. He'd been out walking as he was wont to do early in the morning, there was damp sand on his boots and salt in his beard.

“Just incoming mail and outgoing fishers” Bahorel said, reclaiming his thermos form Grantaire.

“not bad then” Valjean noted. He lit the small wood stove and stood, smiling broadly “cards anyone? loser makes lunch”

 

……………………………...

It was late afternoon when they had packed the last mail delivery up for the day, the sun just beginning to make its downward descent over the westward coast of the island, taking the heat with it.

Bahorel declined Grantaire’s offer of a drink saying that he wanted to get a good hour or two in on the water before it got completely dark. Grantaire gave him a pat on the back and they parted ways, Bahorel down toward the water and Grantaire away from it towards the path leading up to the inn.

The inn was one of the oldest buildings the island had, it was both a propper inn and the town hall. As such it had been given into Valjean’s care. Valjean mostly avoided the place, except on meeting days, preferring to give the responsibility of it’s upkeep over to his daughter Cosette. An old woman by the name of Semplice had done the cooking and housework during Grantaire’s childhood, she had been a sweet lady, prone to forgetfulness but always kind to the children. The inn had been a bit of a mess, not for her lack of devotion to it but rather a by-product of her bad back and arthritis. It had been cleaned up considerably since Cosette had reached majority and was in full control. Semplice still did most of the cooking (except for the fish and chips, that was Cosette’s speciality).

The inn was warm and smoky with bare stone walls and a flagged floor. Three large windows faced the sea, shutters open and warped glass catching the light of the small kerosene lanterns and bare bulbed lamps that hung from the ceiling. A fire was lit in the wide hearth and was crackling away merrily, its dancing light lending an almost surreal quality to the room.

Jehan was seated at his usual corner table, bright purple coat hung on the hook beside him; he had a small, well thumbed book in one hand and was making his way  through a plate of Cosette’s famous fish and chips with the other.

Jehan was as much of a Poet Laureate and artistic patron as the island had ever had. A gentle soul with a fondness for wild places and mythology he came to the island a few times a year to write; renting a cabin on a cliff overlooking the north cove and not doing much but writing poetry, drinking tea and splashing out bright explosions of paint on water-color paper.

Everything about him was long; long hair, long nose, long bird-like bones. He gangled about, a mess of knobbly knees and sharp elbows. He was all colors really, a riot of color barely held together by thin freckled skin; colorful thoughts, colorful language, colorful clothes. His style of dress was an odd mix of overlarge bebaubled sweaters in bright patterns and close fit trousers in varying shades of neon, accented by his marked fondness for chunky scarves and ridiculous hats.

He was all slim stripes of brightness, one of the only truly beautiful things on the island.

Grantaire loved him dearly.

“what do you know about selkies?” he asked by way of greeting, setting aside his book and pushing his half empty plate of chips across the table.

“not much” Grantaire said, sliding into his usual seat and taking one of the proffered chips. “my mum used to tell me stories about them. why?”

Jehan’s eyes lit up, always excited to be asked to explain his passions “I’m doing research on the myths of the channel islands…”

“when are you not?”

Jehan just glared and continued “I know selkie myths as most people know them originate from the northern british isles but I also know that almost every culture has some kind of mythology surrounding seals but I don’t know anything about… or if you have any here”

“I’m not exactly the person to ask” Grantaire said, taking a mouthful from his flask. At Jehan’s crestfallen expression he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and continued “My mum used to call them  reunig’den, seal people, said they came out of the water every now and then and became beautiful people and lived a normal life for a while but always returned to the sea”

The seals used to come to the island in the autumn, whole families of them, bringing cold weather and hellish barking that kept Grantaire awake at night. They would watch them from the harbour walk, he and his mother, the soft round shapes of seals laid out like clusters of wet stones on the sand.

The year his mother died the seals stopped coming. People said it was because the fish were getting scarcer, overfishing driving the seals to find new winter beaches. Others said it was global warming that was messing with the seals’ sense of direction, making them sick and lost. Grantaire knew it was because they were just as afraid of the island as he was.

“There’s a story from Orkney about a fisherman who marries a selkie, do you have anything like that?”

“Look Jehan, I’m really not the person to ask… go to Fauchelevent or someone like that if you want to know stories”

“I’m sorry” They left it at that. Jehan had a knack for knowing what Grantaire was thinking without him even needing to open his mouth and for how best to respond to every situation. It was one of the reasons Grantaire loved him.

They sat in silence for a moment, companionable and warm. Grantaire took another swallow from his flask, not missing the way Jehan’s eyebrows drew together slightly at the action.

They resumed their conversation with Lucretius, a person and a school of thought that Jehan loved more than any other.

Grantaire polished off the chips while Jehan expounded passionately on Lucretius’ theory of atomic swerve and if perhaps free will was atomic and whether or not that made it not free will at all.  

“but if everything is physical like he says wouldn’t the entire concept of a will be physical too?” Grantaire mused, licking vinegar off his finger.

“but then how do we even know what we’re doing?” Jehan groaned, pulling at his hair “I hate the epicureans”

“you love them”

“true… just not right now”

They talked for a good hour and a quarter, round in circles and full of contradictions,  before Jehan called a cease-fire, neither of them having come to a conclusion.

Jehan left him with a lingering kiss on the lips and a sprightly “Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever: Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more!”

He left with the jingle of his earnings and the soft taste of lavender on Grantaire’s lips.

He was still thinking about the concept of will, his head pleasantly fuzzy from his drinking, when Cosette came to take his plate away.

Cosette was an angel. With her brown hair in a halo around her head, her dark skin and eyes like the deepest water she was like someone out of a dream. Grantaire was sure that he would have been in love with her had he been so inclined; as it was he loved her like a sister with a fierce sort of protectiveness that he knew she didn’t need. He had no idea where she came from or what her past had been, she had arrived with Valjean, a small waif of a child at seven years old. His first memory of her was her eyes, so wide and frightened, as she was lifted, cold and soaking wet, from the bottom of Valjean’s tiny sailboat. They had spent that summer together, lying out in the cow pastures and pretending to be seagull chicks in their nests on the rocks. Cosette had joined their school in the fall, two grades below Grantaire and Bahorel but caught up with them fast in academics and in everything else. As they grew older Cosette and Bahorel began to talk of leaving, going to the mainland. Grantaire would always say nothing, knowing that he would never have the strength to leave.

“I have something to tell you” she said, soft voiced and excited, reaching for his empty plate.

“what?” A funny feeling settled itself in the pit of Grantaire’s stomach. He knew what was coming and he didn’t want to hear it.

“I’m going to the mainland” She said, tucking a brown curl behind her ear. She was watching him like she was waiting for a reaction. “I’ve met someone”

“oh” a beat of awkward silence while Grantaire tried to swallow around the lump in his throat “does your father know?”

“I haven’t told him yet, no” she said, sliding into Jehan’s recently vacated seat, leaning on her elbows. a breath “you should come”

“where?”

“Paris” she said, breathlessly, the possibility of it endlessly exciting “come to Paris with me Grantaire”

He scoffed, leaning back and crossing his arms defensively over his chest “why? what does Paris have to offer me?”

“something new, a new life, friends perhaps. a chance to start over… love”

He raised an eyebrow feigning disinterest.“I don’t want that. I don’t want anything to do with that”

“you have no one here Grantaire, why do you stay?”

“I have Jehan…”

“Jehan is Parisian” She reminded him “and I don’t think it’s possible to truly have Jehan”

There was a lengthy pause wherein Cosette fiddled with the fork and Grantaire pretended that he didn’t want, more than anything, to go with her and leave everything behind.

Grantaire rubbed his eyes and sighed “Please tell me that he’s a good guy at least and not some shady sort of psycho that keeps a harem of innocent island girls in his basement”

Cosette laughed, a little bright and a little sad “no no, he’s a good man. His name is Marius, he was interning with that environmental organization that came through last July. we’ve been writing back and forth since then”

Grantaire nodded, schooling his face into an expression of mock seriousness “ahh yes, an eco-freak, totally sane they are”

Cosette punched him lightly on the shoulder “ I object! both to your opinion on my taste in men and also your implication that I can’t take care of myself”

“I know you can take care of yourself” he replied, patting the back of her hand.

She smiled and moved to stand up, gathering the plate and the utensils, balancing them on one hand as she leaned down to kiss Grantaire on the cheek

“thank you, R” she said, the weight of her thanks resting heavy on Grantaire’s heart.

“always darling” he replied, feigning easy and unaffected.

She returned to the kitchen, a small ray of sunlight being swallowed by the shadows of the inn.

 

…………...

 

Grantaire, in a fit of intense, maudlin self-hatred and loneliness, decided to walk home along the sea. He stumbled across the sand, just out of reach of the waves, feet sinking into water-soft sand and sucking the energy straight out of his bones. He held his flask tightly in one hand,  nearly empty but it didn’t matter, brandishing it like a talisman, like it could protect him from the water.

The sea roared in his ears, a rhythmic howl and gasp like a beast in pain. The kelp smelled like corpses, slick black masses of it that rotted on the sand, waiting for the tide to rise again and carry them away. Seagulls, shrieking like frightened children, wheeled over the cliffs in search of a place to rest for the night.

Granatire hated the sea. He hated the way it smelled, like dead things and arid salt that left the back of his throat gummy and dry. He hated the way that the spray coated everything making it sticky and damp and drying into sheets of cracked white salt that tangled his beard and matted in his hair. He hated the way the sea moved, like heaving lungs or a mass of worms, a neverending roll and suck that left him nauseous. He hated it’s selfishness - the way it stole from the land and spat bloated carcases back onto the rocks when it had done sucking the life away.

Grantaire hated the sea and yet he could not escape it. He was drawn to it like an addict is drawn to the object of his addiction; fingers shaking and muscles twitching for want of it.

He stumbled over a stone, ocean smooth and mottled-grey like sealskin. He considered picking it up but kicked it away instead, relishing in the painful shockwave that the movement sent up his leg and the sound it made as it thumped back into the sand.

He laughed a little, a whiskey laugh, no humour to it at all.

There was something down the sand a little ways that had the attention of the seagulls. They had formed a bit of a hesitant ring around it, dodging in every now and then to peck at something in the sand, squawking angrily at each other like aged politicians. Grantaire shouted at them, waving his arms. They scattered, screaming.

It was a boy, or rather the corpse of one. He was curled on his side, barely out of reach of the water, cupids bow lips blue-tinted with cold, eyes shut, and the sodden halo of his long hair matted with seaweed and sand and salt. He was enveloped in a white coat, soft and water-logged, that pulled around his ankles and tangled with kelp and the untied laces of his black motorcycle boots. He looked peaceful somehow, with the incoming tide advancing upon the soles of his shoes and his cheeks gone icy white and bloodless.

Grantaire stood for a moment, alcohol-sluggish brain unsure of what to do.

Suddenly, the corpse took a great heaving gasp and vomited an entire lungs worth of salt water onto the sand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes about things; I based the island off of the island of Sark although I took waaaaayyy too many liberties so I decided to leave it nameless for the time being (no honestly if you have a good name for an island let me know) but I used much of Sark's geography and history when constructing the setting. Sark is one of the channel islands that lie between England and France it's far removed from civilization and had only about 400 human residents in 2008 (I suspect the number has gone down since then). Sark is within the Bailiwick of Gurnsey and is ruled by a tiny parliament under mostly ancient Norman laws (there's some really interesting medieval loopholes in their laws that you can read about if you're interested). It's a really interesting place linguistically as it is one of the only places in the world where the people speak an ancient dialect of Norman Gaelic as a first language. I wanted to incorporate that into this story but was unable to find any dictionaries of word lists online so they're speaking Brenton instead.
> 
> The poem Jehan quotes as he leaves is Farewell Love by Sir Thomas Wyatt.
> 
> I've also never lived on an island so if you have/do please call me out on inaccuracies. Thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy wakes up and Grantaire has a knife held to his throat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing really happens in this chapter... sorry

The boy coughed again, a great heaving rattle that shook his entire frame, leveraging himself up from the sand by his elbows and spitting saltwater and sand and bile onto the ground and then collapsing face-first into it.

“how...let me… oh shit” Grantaire’s mind came on line at that point bypassing panic completely and moving straight to even and decisive. He reached to pull the boy up, to get his face out of the sand, to get a good look at him. He didn’t even have time to reach the boy’s shoulder before the boy was rolling away, pulling himself with great-effort into a semi-seated position, hands held defensively in front of his face.

“don’t touch me, don’t you fucking…” he was interrupted by another bout of bone-shaking coughs, spitting more saltwater onto the ground. His face was torn apart on one side, caked with blood and sand, most likely from being dragged across the beach by the water, his lip was split, crimson blood spotting his chin and his teeth.

“okay, okay Grantaire held his hands up in a pacifying gesture “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help…” He leaned in closer trying to reach and pull the boy to his feet, he needed to get him to a safe place preferably a place with a phone so he could call a doctor. “I need to call a doctor..”

The punch came out of nowhere. Grantaire felt as much as heard the crunch of his nose, long-healed breaks protesting at the sudden impact.

“for fucks sake!” Grantaire shouted, blinking brightness out of his eyes “I’m trying to help…”

The boy was scrambling to his feet, swaying slightly, eyes mad and unfocused, hair hanging in a sodden mass over his face, one hand clenched into a fist in the dripping white of his coat and the other in front of his face like a shield. He was taller than Grantaire but skinny as a beanpole, his cheekbones stuck out like razors and the bones of his hands were as delicate as a bird’s.

“no doctors” he said, somehow managing to sound authoritative while half-drowned and shivering fit to shake apart.

“o-okay no doctors…”

The boy swayed dangerously, knees threatening to give out; Grantaire made a movement to catch him but the boy bared his teeth, blood red and savage and Grantaire stepped back.

“no doctors” the boy repeated, clenching his jaw. Grantaire could see the conscious effort that he put into remaining upright, not giving in, not to shivers and certainly not to Grantaire.

“are you going to kill me?” he asked after a moment, teeth chattering and eyes unfocused.

Grantaire was floored for a moment “no I’m… why the fuck would I …? no”

“oh, good” said the boy and collapsed completely.

Grantaire caught him before he could hit the ground, slinging him up into his arms, bridal style. He was surprisingly light for someone so tall, all bird-bones and sinew, like he could fly away at the slightest puff of air and yet somehow very substantial, very real. He smelled of salt-water and blood, tangy and metallic.  

Panic began to set in suddenly, filling Grantaire’s throat like water and replacing the roar of the ocean with the roar of his heartbeat as it tried its damndest to beat out of his ribcage.

He was ankle deep in wet sand, and he had an unconscious and injured boy in his arms and no idea of what to do.

He did the only thing he could think of. He went home.

The house was dark save for the moonlight glancing in through the window and painting silver on the floor. He lay the boy down in his bed, stripping him out of his coat and wet clothes. There were bruises on his ribs, stark purple against the sickly pale of his skin, the shape of boot heels.  Grantaire wrapped him in blankets, getting the down quilt from the closet and tucking it around the boy’s skinny shoulders.   He lit a fire in the hearth and hung the boy’s wet clothes up on the mantlepiece to dry, hanging the white coat in the closet. He made tea, in two mugs, in the vain hope that the boy would wake up to drink it. Then he sat down at the table, staring sightless at nothing.

There is something strange about the calm that overtakes one's mind in the event of a crisis, it’s rather like the oppressive calm before a storm, the gasp of air before a scream or the gap of stillness between one wave and the next. It’s a form of shock; you seem to move on autopilot, no time for thought, one foot in front of the other, onward and upward.  

And then reality comes back, the storm breaks, the wave crests and all the panic you didn’t feel before comes and drowns you all at once.

The tea was left to languish on the counter, steam rising and fading into the air.

Grantaire opened a new bottle of whiskey instead and ended up drinking half of it, hands shaking and breath coming in short gasps as belated panic constricted his throat and froze his heart.

He had a hypothermic boy bleeding in his bed, he had no idea where he had come from, who he was and oh god what if he died?

He would likely be accused of murder.

Grantaire took another mouthful of the liquor, savoring the burn, like needles down the back of his throat.

He slept fitfully at the kitchen table, awakened by every crackle of the fire and every shift of the beams of the house. Each time he woke he would note, hazily and without any real conscious thought, the return of color to the boy’s cheeks and lips and the evening out of his breathing into the soft rhythm of proper sleep.

...

He awoke suddenly to the sensation of cold metal against the side of his neck.

“don’t move” the voice warned him, raspy from misuse and deadly in its intent.

He didn’t move.

The fire had burned to embers, leaving the light bloody and scarce. He could make out, barely, the clutch of thin fingers around the handle of his steak knife, the blade of which was pressed up against his jugular, shining bloody red in the shivery light of the dying fire.

“I’m not moving” he affirmed, feeling oddly calm about the possibility of his imminent death. The tabletop pressed harshly against his temple.

“where is it?” his attacker hissed, scraping the blade against his throat, raspy against his stubble “my coat, where is it?”

“I put it in the closet”

There was a shuffle as the blade left his throat, footsteps and the rattle of hangars. A pause.

“you can move now”

Grantaire lifted his head, rubbing at his throat where he could still feel the bite of the knife, like a kiss, beneath his jaw.

The boy-from-the-sea was standing in the middle of the room, knife dangling carelessly from long fingers. He had found his coat in the closet and put it on, it was sandy still and bloodied in places but dry.

“I’m sorry about that” The boy said, collapsing into the chair across from Grantaire and rubbing his eyes. He set the knife in the middle of the table, a peace offering, glittering threateningly against the dark wood.

“do you generally thank the people that save your life by holding knives to their throats?” Grantaire asked at last, for lack of anything else to say. His mouth was dry, from fear or stale alcohol or a combination of both he wasn’t sure. His heart pounded like a rabbits against his breastbone.

“I’m sorry” the boy repeated, sounding as if he meant it “I thought you were someone else”

Grantaire noticed absently that his accent was Parisian, but stiffer and more formal than Jehan’s, a little more emphasized, a little more clipped.

“ahh” They lapsed into silence once more, eyeing each other across the table like feral animals that had once been tame; hackles raised and teeth bared but more unsure than threatening, more cautious than violent.

“I’m going to turn on the light” Grantaire said. The boy didn’t make any move to stop him as he stood to light the kerosene lamp that hung above the table.

“so what do I call you, then?” Grantaire asked, sitting down again and looking at the boy a little closer. There was a sort of unreality to his face, the split lip and scraped cheek, the soft curve of his lips, he powerful set of his brows and the proud angle of his nose. His hair was a halo. It had dried nearly white and salt-stiff curls framed his face like rays of light. He looked like a classical statue come to life, flawless skin sculpted with an artist's eye for beauty. There was something fey about the set of his eyes, something wild resting in the depths of that steely blue.

“Enjolras” he said, almost as much to himself as Grantaire, rolling the word around in his mouth “my name is Enjolras”

“just Enjolras?”

“Just Enjolras”

A pause. The boy, Enjolras, inspected the cuts on his palms as if he had never seen himself bleed; all disappointed innocence and steely resolve like he didn’t want to believe that the world could hurt this much and yet was somehow unsurprised that it did.

“I’m R” Grantaire offered when Enjolras made no move to speak.

“just R?” one golden eyebrow raised.

Grantaire supposed that he had walked right into that one.

“touché”

Enjolras didn’t smile, but the iron set of his shoulders softened a little and that was almost as good as.

“Tea?” Grantaire asked, gesturing at the two mugs on the counter, long since grown cold. “I’d make fresh of course… I…” he trailed off.

“Yes, thank you”

Grantaire made them tea, hyper-aware of the presence behind him and the noise of the boiling water, loud in the charged silence.

“I don’t have any milk”

“That's fine” He accepted the mug with steady hands, curling his fingers around the stoneware and blowing over the hot liquid “Thank you”

Grantaire nodded, perching on the counter instead of returning to the table.

"what happened?” He asked after a long moment during which Enjolras had stared sightlessly into his mug like it held answers to all of lifes questions.

“I died” Enjolras said at last, looking up at Grantaire.

He was taken aback by the raw emotion of it  "but you’re here aren’t you?”

“maybe” He looked so small for a moment, lost and confused like he couldn't remember what here even meant. Then he shook himself and the distant regality returned.

“where are you from?” Grantaire pressed.

Enjolras gave him a sidelong look.

“well you can’t just have sprouted from the sea”

“why not?”

There were many reasons, _because you’re human and humans need parents of some variety, because nothing can come from nothing, because spontaneous generation isn’t possible_ … but looking at Enjolras, otherworldly and somewhat terrifying even half drowned and drinking tea out of Grantaire’s favorite green mug, he thought perhaps anything could be possible.

“I don’t remember” He said, glancing sidelong at the floor, shifty in his own lie. Grantaire didn’t press him.

The sun was rising out in the east, soft, barely-there light just beginning to pink the edge of the sky. The larks had started their morning song, the faint warble and chirp growing louder as more awoke and joined the chorus.

Grantaire was overtaken suddenly by a bone deep weariness, the combined stresses of the past five hours hitting him all at once with the force of a sledgehammer. Exhaustion weighed him down like rocks around his ankles.

 **"** you can take the bed” He told Enjolras, staggering off to the loveseat and collapsing into the lumpy cushions .

He fell asleep with the strange sensation of Enjolras’ eyes on him, sharp blue burning holes into his dreams.

 


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What even is the proper etiquette for the morning after one rescues a (very attractive) drowning boy?

The house was empty when Grantaire awoke and silent as a tomb. In the light of day the events of the past hours took on the hazy appearance of a half remembered dream. He chuckled at the ridiculousness of the whole thing, sitting up and rubbing at the indentations the upholstery of the loveseat had left on his cheek. He stretched, spine cracking, and yawned. His mouth felt rank and his tongue weighed heavy against his teeth.

The bed was unmade, a nest of duvets, brights quilts and moth eaten boiled wool left in a hurry. The knife still rested on the table, a sudden and unwelcome reminder of the reality of the night before. Grantaire left it where it lay, somehow unwilling to touch it, and got up to make tea. He noticed absently that his guest had put last night’s mugs in the sink and that the dregs had gone to black and slimy rings around the bottom.

He found that the absence of his mystery guest didn’t bother him like it should have. Perhaps the kid had gone and fallen off a cliff, perhaps he had wandered into town and was going on a murdering spree, perhaps he had never even existed in the first place. Grantaire was too worn out and apathetic to care.

He perched on the countertop, leaning back against the cabinets, and stared at the floor without really seeing it. He was so tired, bone deep tired, to the point where it was almost pain. It was a constant, this exhaustion, a hole in the back of his skull that no amount of sleep or work or food could fill. It wasn’t new either and it always got worse in the spring; as the world got lighter Grantaire’s mind became darker, as the sun got warmer Grantaire’s bones got colder, as the world came alive Grantaire began to wish he was dead.  

The wish for death wasn’t an active thing, rather a low sort of static that buzzed with little urgency at the back of Grantaire’s mind, like a radio heard from the next house over.  It didn’t demand action, rather it would lazily suggest morbid possibility. (stones, water, alcohol, glass… all those things could be used to kill, it would remind him, with all the conviction of a shrinking violet, all you’d have to do is pick it up and let me do the rest). He had learned to ignore it. But sometimes in the early mornings, when all was quiet and the fog hadn’t quite burned away, when there was nothing but the tea slowly going cold by his left hand, when he felt so impossibly alone…like now... then the voice would gain a little volume, a little conviction and the void would threaten to swallow him whole.

He was broken from his morbid thoughts by the sound of the door swinging open and footsteps on the floor.

Enjolras, his strange house guest, shook the mist from his hair and stamped the grass seed from his boots. He started at the sight of Grantaire on the counter, watching him. In the daylight he looked human, more than he had the night before at any rate. The abrasion on the side of his face had scabbed over in thick crusts of wine red and black, and the bruises on his cheekbone were developing into thunderclouds of brilliant purple edged by sickly green and poison yellow. He was wearing his clothes, now dry, and his white coat.  

They froze, Grantaire gripping the edge of the counter and Enjolras looking like a wild animal cornered against his will, blue eyes burning and hair in disarray. Neither of them moved, eyeing each other up like fighters, unsure whether to run or not. The awkwardness stretched between them like a rubber band, ratcheting the tension up higher and higher until it snapped.

At some unspoken cue Enjolras relaxed, taking off his coat to drape it over his arm. He fell into one of the kitchen chairs, lounging with a sort of cold regality, ankle over knee, elbow resting on the table. Grantaire suddenly felt like he was the trespasser here, that this was Enjolras’ space into which he was intruding not the other way around.  

Grantaire cleared his throat, digging his nails into the countertop “you’re still here?”

Enjolras shrugged “you thought I’d be gone?”

“no… I thought I dreamed you is all” he replied, casting round blindly for some of his lost equilibrium.

The judgemental raising of one eyebrow “do you often dream of strange men washing up on the beach?”

“not as often as I would like”

“You saved my life” Enjolras noted, watching him shrewdly.

“I suppose so” He shrugged. He considered asking Enjolras where he had been but realized that he didn't care, the kid wasn’t his responsibility. He settled for offering tea, in that same stilted way he had before, because it was something to say.

“please” Enjolras answered, glad for the interruption.

“was there anyone else?” Enjolras asked after Grantaire had made them both mugs and had abandoned his in favor of the half empty and far more handy whiskey bottle.

“anyone else where?” Grantaire asked, holding the drink on his tongue to feel it burn.

“when you found me. Was there anyone else”  There was something desperate in his tone, something terrified that rested behind the calm turquoise of his eyes. 

“no" Grantaire answered "not that I saw anyway. Just you” Enjolras visibly relaxed “How did you get here anyway? were you on a boat?”

Enjolras glanced away, taking a long sip of too hot tea to drag the silence out.

“must’ve been” he said at last, then “where am I anyway?”

“Ebrennkêr”

Realization dawned “ahh in the channel”

“the very same” He took a drink “do you have anyone that you could contact? that would be missing you?”

Enjolras shook his head, a waterfall of golden curls catching the light “I’d better not, They aren’t expecting to hear from me”

“doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want to know that you’re safe”

“It’s better that they don’t know where I am, at least for now” He looked so sad suddenly, alone and disarmed, completely out of his element.

Grantaire cleared his throat “well I have to go to work. You can stay...or not, it doesn’t matter. There’s an inn about 2 kilometers north” he gestured vaguely in the direction of the town proper “and the ferry leaves from the north quay twice daily”

“I think I’d rather stay” the is that okay? was implied but left unsaid.

Grantaire shrugged “If you like”

He hopped off the counter and went to put on his boots. He was wearing his clothes from the day before but found that he didn’t care as much as he probably should have.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone I am here” Enjolras said, the tone of his voice making it clear that it was an order, not a request. He turned to Grantaire with the full frigid force of his eyes, a stern jaw and a hard mouth that Grantaire found himself powerless against the force of.

He gave a mocking bow and swiped the bottle from the counter. “there’s food in the cupboard. don’t wait up”.

 

The cool morning air served to clear his mind a little. The fog had gone and the day seemed sharp without it, every blade of grass anointed by drops of mist that reflected the light like diamonds. The sky was the same bright blue as the sea, blending sky and water into a single hazy unit, a cloak of oppressive blue from beneath which there was no escape.

Grantaire took the main road into the town proper, dirt track turning to cobblestones turning to asphalt beneath his feet. He passed by the road leading to the harbor and continued on instead, ducking into the low doorway of the library.

The library was not an entity unto itself, rather it was an offshoot of the municipal building and shared space with the courtroom, the police station, social-affairs offices, and the militia (defunct in all but name). A small, architecturally tasteless addition built in the 1980s, the library housed a modest collection of books, a fax machine and the only public computers on the island.  

Joan, the stately, if flabby, librarian was seated behind the service desk reading. Grantaire could just see the bright colors of the cover over the edge of the desk. She put it down as he entered and her face broke into a wide grin.

“ bennigañ ma ene! Grantaire Renouf! where have you been?”

“about” He knew that the news of his location would be spread to Valjean by lunch “I’ve been busy”

She narrowed her bird-black eyes “too busy for me eh?”

He shrugged, she laughed.

“no glass Grantaire” she reprimanded, mouth turning down at the corners when she caught sight of the bottle in his hand “put it outside”.

He took a deep pull of it and set the bottle gently on the steps before the door.

“ well done” she said when he returned, sans bottle “you’re here to use the computers I expect, go on” she waved him toward the monitors, picking up her book again and turning the page.

There was a time when this room, with its industrial carpet, saggy furniture and sharp-edged utilitarian bookshelves filled with books on all subjects had been Grantaire’s sanctuary. He would come after school every day to do his homework at the wobbly table in the corner under the harsh fluorescent lights. Sometimes Cosette would join him - a study buddy in name, not in practice - and they would sit in the overlarge armchair and talk in whispers, heads leaned close together like spies telling secrets. Once Cosette went home or he finished his work he would grab a book at random and read until he finished it or the library closed, whichever came first. He wasn’t picky about the books he read and his young mind devoured every morsel of information it was given. He read history, philosophy, art, science, science fiction, fantasy and tomes of those strange bite-sized “almosts” of short stories. He had been a brilliant child, a passionate scholar possessed of a spark of something that led him to long for truth and harmony.

People wondered what had happened.

 

The computers were nearly as old as Grantaire himself, stout black bricks that panted along and grew too hot to touch if asked to run complicated programs. They were kept at a long table against the far wall, two of them, standing like guard towers over their respective monitors.  Grantaire slid into one of the chairs and wiggled the mouse until the monitor sprang to life. He pulled up the internet and spent a few moments drumming his fingers against the keyboard while he thought of what to search for.

“boy washed up on beach” led to news stories about drownings and dead men.

“boy washed up on beach alive” was even less helpful, all clickbait articles about mermaids and sharks.

He tried four more variations of the words “boy” “beach” “drown” and “alive” with no helpful results.

On a whim he searched for the boy’s name “Enjolras” which led to articles about a French Senator who was about 50 years old and looked nothing like the “real” Enjolras.

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Jehan was probably already at the Inn. He could go get a drink and mope with Jehan for a while… Jehan. Jehan had been looking for Selkies the day before, selkies that were seals while in the water and people on land… hands shaking Grantaire typed in the word.

The first thing to come up was a definition blurb that told him nothing but the linguistic history of the word. The second page he clicked on. Heart in his mouth he read the short article.

“ _In the earliest stories from Scotland, selkies were almost exclusively male. They were seals in the sea, but could remove their skin on land.  The largest number of selkie tales from Scotland originated in the island of Orkney, but are found throughout the islands and coastal Highlands of the country.  The general story was that a beautiful, pale young man would visit a village.  He would seek out people that were dissatisfied with their life, such as married women waiting for their fishermen husbands, enchant them, and disappear the following morning. In many stories the human will steal the selkies seal-coat in order to force the selkie to remain on land with them. But every now and then, in a very rare case, a selkie will choose to remain with a human of their own free will, for no other reason than true love. No selkie stories end happily however, as selkies, no matter how loved, must always return to the sea._  ”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ebrennkêr literally means star island... I have no creativity. Fight me Helen


End file.
